Employee submitted majority-backed petition seeking ouster of union in accordance with federal Labor Board standards, but IAM officials fought it for years

Lexington, KY (October 7, 2022) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Keith Purvis and his coworkers at furniture manufacturer Leggett & Platt have finally formally freed themselves from the control of unwanted International Association of Machinists (IAM) union officials. Purvis and his coworkers have been fighting since 2016 to exercise their right to remove the union.

The victory comes after a DC Circuit Court decision reversed the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and found that, under the Foundation-won Johnson Controls case, NLRB bureaucrats had arbitrarily allowed IAM union bosses to remain in power at the facility despite a petition showing a majority of workers wanted them gone. Following that DC Circuit decision, the NLRB finally confirmed that IAM union officials are no longer the bargaining “representatives” at Purvis’ workplace.

In the 2019 Johnson Controls decision, the NLRB established an employer’s power to cease recognition of a union in a workplace once the current monopoly bargaining agreement expires, provided employees have submitted a petition indicating the majority of them do not wish to be “represented” by the union. If union officials dispute their loss of majority support, the issue is resolved by a secret-ballot election among workers on whether the union should remain in power.

The Johnson Controls process is a marked improvement over the old standard, in which union officials could unilaterally invalidate a petition showing the majority of workers rejected the union by submitting “union cards” or other documentation purportedly showing the union had regained majority status. Before Johnson Controls, secret-ballot elections were generally not conducted to resolve these disputes, despite courts affirming that such elections are the best gauge of employee approval.

Even After Two Petitions for Union’s Ouster, Union Bosses Tried to Force Themselves Back into Facility

In 2016, Purvis submitted to Leggett & Platt management the first of two “decertification petitions,” which demonstrated a majority of his coworkers wanted the union removed from the facility. In response, his employer announced that it would stop recognizing IAM union officials on March 1, 2017. However, IAM union bosses filed charges with the NLRB immediately after, alleging that Leggett & Platt management’s withdrawal of recognition at employees’ behest was unlawful. Undeterred, Purvis gathered signatures for and submitted a second decertification petition, this time seeking a secret-ballot election conducted by the NLRB.

While litigation over union officials’ charges was pending before the DC Circuit Court in 2019, the NLRB issued the Johnson Controls decision. The DC Circuit Court sent the case back to the NLRB, ostensibly because Johnson Controls meant Leggett & Platt had acted lawfully by anticipatorily withdrawing recognition from the union when presented with a majority of employee signatures seeking that outcome.

The NLRB refused to apply the Johnson Controls standard to the case, but, when the case came before the DC Circuit Court again on appeal, the DC Circuit ruled that the NLRB’s refusal to do so was “arbitrary and capricious.” Finally, as September 2022 ended, the NLRB issued a decision confirming the IAM was no longer the majority representative, and IAM officials could not use litigation to foist monopoly bargaining power over the facility.

American Workers Increasingly Giving Boot to Unpopular Unions

Purvis and his coworkers’ successful exercise of their right to boot the unpopular IAM bosses comes as private sector workers across the country are increasingly moving to get rid of union officials that don’t serve their interests. The NLRB’s own data show that, currently, a unionized private sector worker is more than twice as likely to be involved in a decertification effort as the average nonunion worker is to be involved in a unionization campaign.

“No worker in America should be subjected to union control that they oppose, and the Foundation-won Johnson Controls NLRB decision safeguards a vital pathway for workers to exercise their free choice rights in that regard,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Unfortunately, as was the case with Mr. Purvis’ effort, union bosses and Big Labor allies at the NLRB continuously try to pare back this decision so union officials can maintain their grip on workplaces even when it’s obvious workers want them gone.”

“We’re glad Mr. Purvis and his coworkers are finally free of the union and we were proud to assist him,” Mix added.

Federal labor board data show that workers across the country are increasingly likely to be involved in efforts to remove unions from workplaces

Sacramento, CA (September 23, 2022) – Seron Chand and her fellow nurses at Pine Creek Care Center, a Roseville nursing and rehabilitation facility, successfully exercised their right to vote unwanted Teamsters Local 150 union bosses out of their workplace. Chand obtained free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, who aided her in filing a petition asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to conduct a vote to remove the union (also known as a “decertification vote”).

The NLRB’s election certification showed more than 70% of the nurses voted to scrap the union. The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing private sector labor law, which includes holding employee votes to either remove or install a union in a workplace.

Chand and her colleagues benefitted from Foundation-backed reforms adopted by the NLRB in 2020, which make it easier for workers to exercise their right to boot unwanted union officials. Before the reforms, union officials could stop workers who had requested a decertification vote from casting a single ballot by filing so-called “blocking charges,” which often contain unverified and unrelated allegations of employer misconduct. The rule changes improved the process so employees can at least have a chance to vote before any allegations surrounding the election are handled.

Because California lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, Chand and her fellow nurses were forced not only to accept the so-called “representation” of the clearly unpopular Teamsters union, but were required to subsidize union activities financially just to keep their jobs. In Right to Work states, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.

Pine Creek Nurses Join Nurses Across the Country Who Have Cut Ties with Unpopular Unions

Just a month before Chand and her colleagues’ successful decertification vote, Foundation attorneys aided nurses at Mayo Clinic in Mankato, Minnesota, in their successful effort to throw out the unpopular Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) union from their workplace. About the same time, nurses from the St. James, Minnesota, branch of Mayo Clinic voted to decertify American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 65 union officials by a nearly 9-to-1 margin, also with Foundation legal assistance.

In California, Foundation-backed nurses at Monterey’s Cypress Ridge Care Center voted to remove Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2015 officials a few months ago.

The increase in efforts by workers to free themselves from unions they do not want is not limited to nurses. The NLRB’s own data show that, currently, a unionized private sector worker is more than twice as likely to be involved in a decertification effort as the average nonunion worker is to be involved in a unionization campaign.

“Big Labor is claiming that worker support for unions is soaring – a narrative that they will use ahead of midterm elections to convince their political allies to grant them even more coercive legal powers over rank-and-file workers,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “However, the NLRB’s own stats concerning unionization, as well as a spike in workers seeking Foundation aid in kicking out unwanted union officials, show that the real story is that workers are rejecting the increasingly politicized and coercive ‘representation’ today’s union officials are offering.”

Workers petitioned for election to oust union after first vote against contract, but union boss secretly signed unpopular contract in July anyway to maintain power

Franklin, PA (September 19, 2022) – Workers at Latrobe Specialty Steel’s facility (also known as Carpenter Technology) in Franklin, PA, are fighting Steelworkers union officials’ attempt to trap them under a union contract workers voted down twice. Their effort follows union bosses’ secret “ratification” of the unpopular contract despite telling workers that their votes would determine whether the contract would go into effect. Latrobe Specialty Steel employees are seeking to “decertify,” i.e. vote out, the Steelworkers Union with free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

Kerry Hunsberger leads an employee push to vote out the Steelworkers union at Latrobe Specialty Steel. Hunsberger’s attorneys filed a brief this week at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) arguing that union officials concocted an improbable contract ratification story to avoid being voted out by the workers they claim to “represent.” The union bosses admit to signing the unpopular contract behind workers’ backs in an attempt to trigger the NLRB’s so-called “contract bar” policy. The “contract bar” arbitrarily immunizes unions from employee decertification votes for up to three years after a contract between union and company officials is finalized.

Steelworkers Union Officials Signed Unpopular Contract to Avoid Being Voted Out by Workers

Latrobe Specialty Steel workers first voted July 25 on the contract drawn up by Steelworkers union officials. The workers soundly rejected the contract, and Hunsberger began collecting employee signatures for a “decertification petition” shortly afterwards. The NLRB will administer a union decertification election among the workers of a facility if the petition contains the signatures of 30% or more of the employees.

According to documents and transcripts filed with the NLRB, when Steelworkers union officials discovered a decertification petition was circulating, they secretly signed the disfavored contract on July 28, without telling the employees or the employer, in an attempt to activate the “contract bar” rule and avoid being voted out.

In their haste to enact the employee-rejected contract to trigger the “contract bar,” union officials didn’t even finalize critical details of the contract like the start and end dates. Even though the union claims this contract was supposedly in effect on July 28, union officials held a new employee ratification vote on August 1, encouraging workers to ratify the contract, but not telling them their “vote” was a meaningless formality because the contract was already signed and in effect.

Hunsberger submitted a valid decertification petition on August 1, just hours before the sham contract vote occurred. As with the previous vote, the workers again lopsidedly rejected the contract. But later that night, union officials suddenly announced to the employer that the contract was already in effect and the ratification vote was a nullity because of the union bosses’ covert signing on July 28. According to the trial transcript, one union boss admitted under oath that the Steelworkers union executes contracts despite employees voting them down, and that he did so in this case and ignored the employees’ vote against the contract “to protect the integrity of the union.” Apparently the Steelworkers bosses’ lust for monopoly bargaining power and compulsory union payments takes precedence over employee democracy.

In fact, the Steelworkers Union’s post-hearing brief openly admits that union officials “executed the contract on July 28 to… pre-empt the decertification petition circulating at the facility” and that the August 1 “vote was only taken as a courtesy to employees [and] was an attempt to obtain their blessing of the contract that the [union officials] had already executed.”

In the same brief union bosses doubled down on their deceptive practices, stating that “the Union’s representations to employees here are irrelevant… and the union was within its discretion to take a vote of its members and was not obligated to abide by the results of such a vote” (emphasis added).

Hunsberger now waits for Regional NLRB officials to decide if union bosses’ ploy to hastily “ratify” an incomplete and unpopular contract over the objections of multiple workers’ votes successfully blocked workers’ statutory right to a decertification vote.

Foundation President: “Contract Bar” Policy Encourages Anti-Democratic Gamesmanship by Union Bosses

Foundation attorneys’ brief defending Hunsberger and her coworkers’ right to vote the union out argues that the contract never took effect due to the lack of a discernible effective date as well as the lack of an employee vote in favor of ratification. The Foundation attorney’s brief argues that Steelworkers officials’ assertions that they entered into a binding contract are “nothing more than a smokescreen, concocted by a desperate and unpopular Union to entrench itself and bar employee free choice” by manipulating the “contract bar.”

“The ‘contract bar’ arbitrarily blocks, often for years, workers’ statutory right under federal law to vote out union officials they oppose. Worse, it encourages union officials to cynically impose a contract at all costs, especially when union bosses know rank-and-file workers would see such a contract as a reason to want to be free of so-called union ‘representation,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Immunizing union officials from being voted out by the workers they claim to ‘represent’ creates an incentive structure in which union boss power comes first and majority support among workers comes last.”

“This case presents an easy choice for the NLRB: defend the rights of rank-and-file workers or side with Steelworkers union officials who repeatedly misled those workers and twice disregarded their votes simply to protect union power and compulsory dues,” added Mix.